The Ozark Howler

The Ozark Howler, also known as the Ozark Black Howler, is a legendary creature that is purported to live in remote areas in Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas.
The Ozark Howler is typically described as being bear sized, with
thick body, stocky legs, black shaggy hair, and as having prominent
horns. Its cry is often described as being a combination of a wolf's howl and an elk's bugle.Cryptozoologists have speculated that the creature might be a misidentified or unrecognized big cat. Anthropologists have speculated that the creature might be a branching off of the dark dogs of death found in British folklore.
Chad Arment asserts in his book Cryptozoology that the Ozark
Howler myth is a hoax. According to Arment, he and many other
cryptozoologists received email messages that made wild claims about
Ozark Howler evidence. These messages were tracked down to a university
student who had made a bet that he could fool the cryptozoological
research community.
However, many witnesses to seeing it in person in the region, prior to
this hoax, show that Chad Arment's assertion was only correct in the one
case, but not in the many cases of those who either haven't a computer,
have seen the Howler prior to the hoax or have seen it without hearing
of the legend.